1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed herein is an improvement on hedge pruning shears which allows the user to quickly saw off branches and keep debris confined during use of the shears so that clean up operations after pruning are made in a shorter time and with less effort.
There is a great need for a way to be able to use manual hedge shears to quickly saw off branches, while still being able to confine the cuttings which result in a container or receptacle for easy clean up. With an ordinary pair of manual hedge shears, the operator must put the shears down to pick up a separate saw when large branches are encountered, then put the saw down after use, pick up the pruning shears again for use, and then the cuttings deposited upon the ground are often difficult to collect, sweep up, or pick up, because they become lodged in the ground material. Such ground material frequently consists of other shrubs, bushes, grasses, decorative rock etc. The cuttings become lodged in the ground and other plant material and are difficult and time consuming to collect. The subject invention solves this problem by being able to saw off large branches without having to stop and change instruments, and at the same time directing smaller cuttings from the hedge shears into a containing receptacle. Alternatively, without a receptacle or bag, the smaller cuttings can be periodically dumped off the chute into a trash can or other handy container.
2. Background
Hedge Pruning Shears are an important tool for landscaping, but they have the disadvantage of being messy and creating debris during use which is time consuming and labor intensive to clean up. In addition they are typically limited as the size of branches they can clip. It is estimated that up to 80% of labor costs in landscaping related to pruning is spent in the clean up process of raking, picking up, and bagging the cuttings. Up to 5% is spent in changing implements when one tool cannot be used and another must be substituted for it. This time spent is a major labor expense for gardening and landscaping companies, as well as for individual gardeners.
3. Description of Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
There are very limited remedies for these problems at this time. Examples of relevant art include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,325,734 R. H. Bishop, Jr. Aug. 3, 1943 is a Lycopodium Harvester or Clipper which utilized a vertical pair of right angle clippers with a pan for harvesting Lycopodium. It has the advantage of filling up and then having to be emptied. This makes it impractical for extensive gardening work where large amounts of clippings are generated as the apparatus must be emptied frequently.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,338,873, H. B. Scott, May 4, 1920 was a grass border shears device having an open pan, but the pan mechanism was attached vertically to a pair of vertical shears specifically for cutting edging grass. Such an apparatus would be cumbersome and would not work well with hedge trimming when working on trimming in a standing position. The open front of the pan in this invention also would not lend itself to restraining clippings from non-grassy type plants.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,274, Mark D. Miller, Jan. 24, 1995 consisted of garden shears with debris catchers on each blade. They have the disadvantage of having to be emptied after each cutting swing of the blades.
U.S. Design Pat. No. 313,334, Lloyd A. Novak, Jan. 1, 1991 for a clippings catching attachment for garden shears, has an enclosure unit anchored on each blade. Again, this invention cannot be used for large, continuous processing as the cuttings from each blade closing are enclosed within the blades and must be manually emptied after each cutting action.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,460,616, John F. Appleton, Mar. 10, 1944 is a grass-catching attachment for shears which consists of only a pusher like flange on one side. Again there is no provision for directing cuttings into a receptacle or onto the ground for later clean up.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,212,186, J. A. Faruenheim, Oct. 19, 1965 contains a grass catcher for grass shears but the pusher arm is only designed to prevent the deposition of grass in the area adjacent to a lawn when they are used.
All of the above examples of relevant art have the disadvantage of not being able to handle large volumes of cuttings, and/or they require switching to different implements depending on the sizes of the branches. Each of them must be emptied each time they cut something or after a short number of uses of the shear blades. None of them have the saw on one blade for sawing large branches off.
The subject invention disclosed in this application has the advantage of being able to be used for large, continuous pruning tasks because the cuttings from each blade chopping cycle drop into a receptacle bag or into a container so they do not have to be swept up. In addition, the saw on the bottom of one blade allows larger branches to be cut off without having to switch implements.